Governor Rick Perry signed anti-SLAPP legislation into law on June 17, 2011. It passed both chambers of the Texas Legislature unanimously. As such, under Texas law the act takes effect immediately. Texans targeted with a SLAPP can now file a motion to dismiss the suit that suspends discovery until the Court rules on the motion. In addition, the Court may award fees and costs to a SLAPP victim upon the granting of the motion.

A Texas appellate court sided with a blog and its author, holding that a trial court had wrongly declined to dismiss a defamation claim brought by a school principal and ruling a state free speech law protects the blog posts at issue on the ground they concern matters of public concern involving public officials.

A man who was in the business of buying and selling cars had difficulty getting the title to a vehicle he purchased in Louisiana, so he hired an Austin, Texas law firm to help. The law firm ultimately sued him over an online review he posted about the company.

Texas Laywer's Litigator of the week is defense laywer Adam Milasincic, who has used Texas' anti-SLAPP Statute twice this year to defend his clients for speaking out about an animal rights issue. Read more here.

A judge sided with a student who was sued for leaving a negative review of a law firm online, dismissing the defamation lawsuit and ordering the firm to pay her $26,831.55 in legal fees. The student’s lawyer successfully petitioned the court to have the lawsuit dismissed as a violation of Texas’s law against Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPP).

A Texas couple faced a lawsuit filed by their petsitter for $6,766 over a negative Yelp review. After that case was dropped, the petsitter re-filed the suit as a full-on defamation lawsuit seeking up to $1 million in damages. The couple asked the court to throw the entire case out because it should be prohibited by the Texas anti-SLAPP law.

In what appears to be the highest award since Texas‘ anti-SLAPP law was enacted, “Plaintiffs in a “revenge porn” defamation lawsuit must pay $1.3 million in anti-SLAPP sanctions and attorneys’ fees and apologize for filing “baseless” claims in similar lawsuits to punish their critics, a Texas judge ruled.”

The Texas Supreme Court heard arguments Dec. 4 in a case of the first impression pitting Fort Worth-based natural gas drilling company Range Resources Corp. and its subsidiary against fracking opponents.

The companies allege the fracking opponents defamed them through statements and release of a video to the media showing a hose spewing water that was on fire. The fracking opponents sought to have the Range Resources plaintiffs’ defamation claims dismissed based on the Texas Citizen’s Participation Act, also know Texas’ anti-SLAPP (strategic lawsuits against public participation) statute.